A snake star entwined itself tightly around the branches of an octocoral. Photo: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Deep Connections 2019
This month, amid a pandemic and racial reckoning, President Trump found the time to continue his attack on our public lands and waters. He announced that commercial fishing would be allowed in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, undoing a key protection for the only marine monument in the Atlantic. Allowing industrial-scale commercial fishing in the monument isn’t just harmful to the ocean – it’s also illegal.
Act today: call on your legislators in Congress to protect the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts.
Plain and simple, President Trump does not have the legal authority to eliminate or significantly reduce protections in our national monuments.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monument was created by President Obama in 2016 using the Antiquities Act. Presidents of both parties have used the Antiquities Act for over 100 years to protect areas of scientific, cultural, or historic value on land and in the sea. However, it doesn’t allow presidents to decimate previously established monument.
Trump’s rollback of the monument’s core protections will harm the unique deep-sea corals, endangered whales, and other incredible wildlife living in the monument. It will harm us, as the ocean already bears the brunt of the climate crisis.
Add your name to the petition calling for continued protections for this incredible marine monument.
Our public lands and waters are part of our identity, and they help define who we are as a nation. Stand with us in support of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.